- If Kids Are Awake, They’re Probably Online (NYTimes) — kids aged 8-18 spend, on average, 10 hours/day using smart phone, computer, television, or some other electronic device. (via Hamish MacEwan)
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Brazil’s WIPO Proposal on Patent Limitations and Exceptions — well-argued proposal for balanced IP law.
16.Our experience also illustrates how difficult it is to effectively make use of compulsory licenses. Our pharmaceutical industry took almost two years to develop and produce the licensed patent, because, unfortunately the patent, as granted in Brazil and in other countries, was not sufficiently revealed to allow its production as promptly as desired.
17.We reserve the right to come back to the discussion of this problem in other documents concerning to what extent the disclosure of patents is preserving (or not) the essentials of the patent system. The question we now pose ourselves is: considering the checks and balances of the patent system, what is the value of a patent if a third party cannot use it when it falls into the public domain or, exceptionally, when its compulsory licensing is deemed necessary?
- OpenStreetMaps the Default in Haiti — rescue workers are loading OSM street maps onto GPS units to get street-level detail maps of Haiti. The team members are thrilled to have this resource you have created. I wish you could see their faces ‘light up’ when I take their GPS unit and tell them that I’m going to give them street level detail maps. (via Simon Willison)
- We-to-Me Participation (Nina Simon) — useful mental framework for thinking about social software and online experiences, both from the point of view of a cultural institution and for any online activity. Stage one provides people with access to the content that they seek. Stage two provides an opportunity for inquiry and for visitors to take action and ask questions. Stage three lets people see where their interests and actions fit in the wider community of visitors to the institution. Stage four helps visitors connect with particular people—staff members and other visitors—who share their content and activity interests. Stage five makes the entire institution feel like a social place, full of potentially interesting, challenging, enriching encounters with other people.
"mapping" entries
Blaise Aguera y Arcas' TED Talk on Augmented Maps
Blaise Aguera y Arcas (creator of PhotoSynth, founder of Seadragon and now Architect of Bing Maps) gave a talk at TED last week. In it he showed off some of the latest Bing Maps has to offer. He demoed the fluid zooming capabilities based on Blaise’s own Seadragon technology and the 3D capabilities provided by Silverlight. He also demoed how images and live video can be overlay Photosynth-style on top of the map (these were both made possible by the mapping application platform that was recently added to Bing Maps).
Where 2.0 Mapping : Mobile : Local
The Where 2.0 conference program is almost complete. The three day conference runs March 30 – April 1 in San Jose. The focus is on the tech industry’s advances in Mapping, Mobile and Local. Each of these areas are being treated equally and each will have its own afternoon track. Coming back this year we have great speakers such as John Hanke (Google), Jack Dangermond (ESRI), Ryan Sarver (Twitter), Danny Sullivan (Search Engine Land) and Dennis Crowley (Foursquare).
Four short links: 26 January 2010
Kids Online, Balanced IP Law, Open Haiti Street Maps, and Stages of Social Online Experience
Four short links: 15 December 2009
Open Source Imagery Analysis, GPL Lawsuits, Small World, Regina v Internet
- Opticks — Opticks is an expandable remote sensing and imagery analysis software platform that is free and open source. Hugely extensible system. (via geowanking)
- Best Buy, Samsung, And Westinghouse Named In SFLC Suit Today (Linux Weekly News) — the Software Freedom Law Center is suing them for selling GPL-derived products without offering the source. They’ve been unresponsive when contacted outside the legal system.
- Twitter Helps Reunite Owner with Camera — Kiwi blogger saw camera fall from car in front of him, posted a picture from the camera to his blog and asked “anyone recognize someone from this picture?”. How long do you think it took to get a hit? I love that New Zealand is a village with a seat at the UN.
- R vs The Internet — seminar held in New Zealand about the effects of the online world on law, including matters of suppression and contempt. See session notes from TechLiberty and video of the sessions from R2.
Four short links: 2 November 2009
Inside Botnets, Creating Choropleths, Privacy Simplified, Massively Machiavellian Online Social Gaming
- Your Botnet is My Botnet (PDF) — 2008 USENIX Security paper analysing >70G of data gathered when security researchers hijacked the Torpig botnet. A major limitation of analyzing a botnet from the inside is the limited view. Most current botnets use stripped-down IRC or HTTP servers as their command and control channels, and it is not possible to make reliable statements about other bots. In particular, it is difficult to determine the size of the botnet or the amount and nature of the sensitive data that is stolen. One way to overcome this limitation is to “hijack” the entire botnet, typically by seizing control of the C&C channel. […] As a result, whenever a bot resolves a domain (or URL) to connect to its C&C server, the connection is redirected or sinkholed. This provides the defender with a complete view of all IPs that attempt to connect to the C&C server as well as interesting information that the bots might send..
- cartographer.js — build thematic maps using Google Maps. To be precise, you can build a choropleth, which is my word of the day. (via Simon Willison)
- Making Privacy Policies Not Suck (Aza Raskin) — interested in developing a standard set of privacy policy components the way that Creative Commons has created a standard set of copyright license components.
- Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem of Hell (TechCrunch) — many of those games on Facebook that your friends play are evil. To get in-game money or objects, they’ll let you take a survey but at the end you’re signed up for crap you never wanted. Related: this article on monetizing social networks which talks about social gaming’s business model.
Four short links: 13 October 2009
Open Source, Gov 2.0, Gaming, Education
- Our Open Source School — blog of Albany Senior High School in New Zealand, which only runs open source software.
- Behind The Scenes at What Do They Know — interesting post showing details behind the What Do They Know web site. In the last year there have been only seven significant cases where requests have been hidden from public view on the site due to concerns relating to potential libel and defamation. Three of those cases have involved groups of twenty or so requests made by the same one or two users. While actual number of requests we have had to hide is around 70 (0.4% of the total) even this small fraction overstates the situation due to the repetition of the same potentially libelous accusations comments in different requests. In all cases we have kept as much information up on the site as possible. Our policy with respect to all requests to remove information from the site is that we only take down information in exceptional circumstances; generally only when the law requires us to do so.
- The Complete History of Lemmings — a must-read for videogamers from the early 90s. Theres been much debate over the choice of colours as well, but the colours were selected, not because they were the easiest to choose, but because of the PC EGA palette. With the limited choice, it was decided the green hair was nicer than blue, and with that, the final Lemming was born. I was actually the next person to code up a demo on the Commodore 64, but I only got so far as having a single Lemming walking over the landscape before Dave put me onto another project.
- Google Replaces TeleAtlas — Tele Atlas confirms that Google has decided to stop using Tele Atlas map data for the U.S. Google will now use its own map data. Our relationship with Google for map coverage continues outside of the U.S. in dozens of geographies.